About

“Eat to live not live to eat.” I agree with that statement. However, I do look forward to multiple meals throughout the day (like J.R.R. Tolkien’s Hobbits)!

I’ve been baking since I was eight and influenced by bakers and cooks in my family. My grandfather owned a bakery in Hawaii serving beautiful breads and pastries. My mom is a talented, mostly self-taught family chef extraordinaire with influences from my abuelita and tias.
Good Things
From an early age I’ve enjoyed pouring through cookbooks and food catalogs. I didn’t know it then, but I was eating with my eyes. After earning a Business degree with an emphasis in Information Technology, I wanted to attend Culinary School but quickly found it was not financially feasible at that time. I continued developing marketable technical skills during the timely explosion of the internet and Web. For the last decade I enjoyed a career as a programmer, Web applications developer/designer.

The Teenie Cakes Site

The site started off with the idea of focusing on cupcakes and muffins. I had notions of grandeur that one day I’d open my own cupcakery. “Teenie Cakes” is a name my Husbandry called my cupcake and muffin treats and so it was how the Teenie Cakes name came to be. As I don’t bake a lot of cupcakes these days (otherwise, I’d be larger than a house!), the Teenie Cakes site includes recipes for everyday meals, dishes and desserts.

I enjoy a lot of the recipes, food information, resources and social networking available on the internet today. This site is both a food journal for myself and a means to share recipes I create on my own, try and experiment plus some of my culinary adventures I experience in bakeries, restaurants, festivals, wine tastings, etc. Recently these sections were added:

Garden Fresh – Sharing my garden delights and bringing them inside for tasty culinary dishes and treats.
Time For Wine – This section includes wine tasting adventures and some everyday bottles enjoyed.
Photo·licious Photography – An ongoing gallery featuring some of my food-oriented photography.

Photography

One of my favorite photography disciplines is food. Both photographing and styling real food for the camera is an art form that I’m continually and passionately working on. All the food I photograph is usually eaten right after I take the shot. I started off shooting a Canon EOS Rebel XT with the kit lens and achieved beautiful results for years with that camera. I now shoot interchangeably with both a Canon EOS 5D and Canon EOS 7D, using a range of three different lenses for food photography. Summer evenings contribute the most beautiful, warm and natural lighting. These are some of my favorite images. I use an off-camera flash with a shoot through umbrella or table lighting (not my favorite) for shots that are taken when natural light is not available.

Please join me as I continue writing about culinary experiences and allow me to share with you… Baking, Cooking, Wine and other Foodie Musings!

My Other Site: CorgiTales.com – A Photo Journal about three Pembroke Welsh Corgis.